Normally, when a big Philly-centric sporting event
approaches I can’t wait for it to start.  When the Sixers were making
noise I hated off days; when the Birds owned the NFC I knew the value of the
bye, but was tormented by the extra week – I remember being pissed because Nova was playing on the Friday/Sunday
Tournament split instead of Thursday/Saturday. 
But this World Series seems different. 
For some reason I don’t want it to start – it could be another week
before first pitch and that’d be fine by me.

Part of this is that I’m more immersed – I’ve written
thousands of words on this team and will write thousands more before all is
said and done, but maybe I haven’t appreciated the team enough – but the other hand,
and perhaps more relevant to me, is that I want to savor this.  For once, the city seems like it not only
wants this team to win, but really believes it will too, and that’s fun.  I’ve had countless non-fan friends tell me
about the shouting outside their windows after the NLCS win, and I honestly believe
the town is going to be wearing more red than even Stu Bykofsky could predict
(and when it comes to ideas he deems “his”, that man is an optimist), and that’s
fun.  The importance of Sports is not
narrowly wins and losses, the importance of Sports is hidden within the fans.  Roger Angell once famously wrote that “caring – caring deeply and passionately, really caring –
which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so
it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much
what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern,
as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naiveté – the infantile and ignoble
joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the
middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball – seems a
small price to pay for such a gift.”

This town cares about the
Phillies.

They say the first World Series is the one you remember most. No, no, no. I guarantee you don’t remember that one because the fantasy world you always dreamed about is suddenly real. – Sparky Anderson

Three lines on their world:

1. Today, the Phillies and the Rays are the lead sports story around the world

2. Kobe suffers a preseason injury
3. and Tony Romo’s injury is as bad as they originally expected

Three lines on ours:

1. At 8:22 tonight the Phillies will return to the World Series

which is pretty much the only newsy piece of sports worth paying attention to today, isn’t it?

Phillies, Birds, Sixers, Flyers and what everybody is talking about, after the jump

PHILLIES

So there are about 173 (UPDATE: that might be low) articles on the Phillies today – and rightly so, it’s the WORLD SERIES after all. Still, it means that I’m going to be especially judicious about ‘READs’.  I’ll hand out just five (I could give out about 15 more) and put the rest below. Truth be told though, this doesn’t happen ever era – if you have the time, check them all all the ones that don’t come off as offensively moronic out.

READ

Bill Lyon on Harry Kalas and his son Todd, the Rays announcer. READ

Stan Hochman remembers the little moments that won the chip in 1980. Probably the best column he’s written since it happened the first time. READ

The Silent Partners won’t talk, so Rich Hofmann gets David Montgomery to talk about them. READ

Jim Salisbury polls the Phillies about their on-team leadership and gets two answers. The first isn’t surprising: everybody and nobody.  The second is: Pat Burrell. READ

David Murphy looks at Shane Victorino’s would-be college football career. READ

SKIP

John Smallwood talks about what the black stars in the series could mean to the sport of baseball. SKIP

Sam Donnellon talks to, with, and about Cole Hamels as Hamels prepares to take the mound for game one. It’s mostly old news, but check out this Romero quote
“Have you seen that cat?” Phils’ reliever J.C. Romero said to a
reporter asking about the [Hamels' apparent indifference]. “He has no
emotions. He’s like a quiet assassin.” SKIP

Todd Zolecki looks at Cole Hamels’ demeanor and the shadow of 1980. SKIP

John Gonzalez talks destiny and makes his pick. SKIP

Marcus Hayes’ game one preview.  Not a bad resource as far as these quick previews go. SKIP

Marcus Hayes provides casual fans with a valuable primer on the Phillies, 1-25. SKIP

Bill Conlin praises Pat Gillick in his own longwinded, confusing way.  Or at least I think he does, I know he tosses out random anecdote after random anecdote, starting by saying the Phils needed pitching, and ending by pointing out that Pat Gillick “understands that to assemble a functional 25-man baseball team it is necessary to collect 25 guys with All-Star resumes,” the type of allowed typo that only a defeated editor would allow in newsprint. SKIP

Phil Sheridan looks at the final pitch of the series and wonders if Brad Lidge will be involved. SKIP

Bob Ford says that there is a little bit of Bowa in Rollins (his penchant for saying moronic things?). SKIP

Todd Zolecki looks back at the game-changing decision to send Myers to the minors. SKIP

Mike Jenson compares Cole Hamels to the Phils’ last true ace: Curt Schilling. SKIP

Marc Narducci, handling the Rays’ notes, looks at Tampa’s rotation, David Price’s role, Aaron Rowand’s rooting interest, and more. SKIP

Paul Hagen’s position by position scouting report. SKIP

Rich Hofmann compares the Rays’ young lefty game one stud with the Phillies. SKIP

Bob Ford says that the Phillies will take this improbable World Series in this ugly stadium. SKIP

Michael Matza on fending off the curse of Billy Penn. SKIP

The Philly teams who didn’t win. SKIP

Bob Vetrone Jr. says enough is enough and makes a bold pick. SKIP

The Daily News runs a Bill Conlin column from a week and a half ago? SKIP

The Daily News staff makes their picks. SKIP

Mike Jenson goes through Ryan Howard’s game five AB by AB. SKIP

Todd Zolecki looks at the Phillies’ defense. SKIP

Rich Westcott brags about all the World Series he’s seen the Phillies play in. SKIP

Paul Vigna says that fans are paying absurd amounts for Phillies tickets. SKIP

Peter Mucha reports on a women attending her 45th consecutive World Series. SKIP

Marc Narducci on how the Rays were built (something I can do in a sentence: they were awful for a decade and kept getting the first pick in the draft.) SKIP

Gerry Fraley should get an award, he wrote the 10,00th “Joe Maddon is odd, but successful” column of the week. SKIP

Ed Barkowitz writes about SNL, more. SKIP

Phil Anastasia compares this Rays team to the 93 Phillies.  It would be a good column if it wasn’t such a dumb comparison. SKIP

Frank Fitzpatrick on Joe Carter’s home run. SKIP

Phil Anastasia says that Phillies fans aren’t angry anymore, which means he’s out of his fucking mind. SKIP

Mike Jenson: “you know what’s weird? the internet.” SKIP

John Gonzalez talks ducks, Bob Ford says something nice about someone (and made a drug reference?), and Phil Sheridan has jokes. SKIP

Paul Hagen gives Frank Coppenbarger more press. Apparently he worked on a low A ball team that Joe Maddon played on. SKIP

Randy Miller says the DH is going to be righthanded. SKIP

Kevin Cooney breaks the news that Cole Hamels is good at pitching. SKIP

Kevin Cooney predicts that someone will win the World Series. SKIP

EAGLES

Bob Brookover and Jim Salisbury look at DeSean Jackson’s would-be baseball career. READ

Bob Brookover’s notes report that the Birds signed a fullback, and more. SKIP

Paul Domowitch pens a column on Matty Ice’s return home, and boy did the headline writers fuck this one up.  It’s not ‘Matt Ice’, it’s ‘Matty’, and it’s a little double entendre, both suggesting that the kid has ice in his veins and making an oblique reference to THIS.  Come on headline writers, if shouldn’t be working in sports if you can’t reference cheap beers. READ

Reuben Frank on the new fullback. SKIP

SIXERS

Phil Jasner talks with Phil Martelli about Delonte West’s mood disorder. READ

Kate Fagen reports that Dalembert may be held out of the Sixers’ preseason finale. SKIP

Phil Jasner says that Elton Brand is enjoying preseason. SKIP

Tom Moore says Dalembert isn’t worried. SKIP

FLYERS

Sam Cardichi reports that Antero Niittymaki will get another start in goal tonight. SKIP

Wayne Fish says The Noodle is getting thrown in the fire. SKIP

TODAY and MORE

It’s game one – so once our eyes stop bleeding from overcoverage we’ll be here all day.  As always, feel free
to email
with any questions, suggestions, comments or complaints.  

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 am and is filed under Morning Rounds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.